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Tags : Announcements & News, HP Palm Phone and Tablet Gear

The Palm Foleo: The Perfect Companion for Your Smartphone?

Posted on 30 May 2007 by


Big news from Jeff Hawkins and Palm, Inc. today.

Watch this.

palm-folio.jpg

Your comments?

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- who has written 1699 posts on Gear Diary.

I started Gear Diary on September 30, 2006, and my goal was that this not be an easily labeled site. We all have gear that we use daily – some of it electronic and some of it organic. I think it is fascinating to explore the equipment that makes our lives easier, more entertaining, more productive, and more manageable. My hope is that Gear Diary visitors will find this site to be a comfortable and friendly place to discuss interesting topics – and not only those that are tech related, as well as a location to discover various types of gear – whatever that term may end up implying – that they never knew existed. My specialty is in-depth reviews written in a layman’s terms, because everyone can understand technology, sometimes it just takes a little translating. +Judie Stanford

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  • http://www.clintonfitch.com Clinton Fitch

    $499!?!?!!?! :-O

    For that price, I’ll take this.

    Why on EARTH would anyone buy this? Granted, I’m a huge WinMo guy but if Microsoft came out with something like this I’d slam them too…. oh wait, UMPC? :-O

  • JamesM

    Microsoft DID come out with something like this in 1997. It was called the Handheld PC.

    Any buzz you hear is Palm stock being sold as fast as possible.

    (And I keep seeing websites calling it the “Folio”. It should be spelled Foleo – rhymes with Treo)

  • http://www.geardiary.com Judie Lipsett Hughes

    JamesM – great catch; I have corrected that in the title. :-)

  • http://www.clintonfitch.com Clinton Fitch

    JamesM,

    Easy now buddy… :-)

    http://www.hpcfactor.com (my other site)

    The H/PC was far and away more functional for its time than this is ever going to be… :-)

  • JamesM

    Clinton I totally agree with you. I had a Velo 1, a Jornada 680 and still own a MobilePro 780, and am still disappointed that the H/PCs didn’t do better. All I’m saying is that for all the hype, it’s NOT an earth shattering concept. The only thing new and different is that it’s a smartphone companion and not a PC companion. It looks like a H/PC to me.

  • http://www.clintonfitch.com Clinton Fitch

    Ah, okay… thanks for the explanation. The beauty of typed text – sometimes I miss the real meaning of posts. :-S

    The problem the H/PC had was that Microsoft could never figue out what they wanted to do with it beyond the enterprise customer. If they had marketed it to the consumer it would have been far more successful. But alas the PocketPC was coming about in the late 90s and that is where the marketing dollars went.

  • http://www.geardiary.com Judie Lipsett Hughes
  • http://www.geardiary.com Mitchell Oke

    Definitely looks like a Latitude X1 ripoff with less features (but admittedly a much smaller pricetag)?

    Get some linux hackers onto this and it could be a great device ;)

  • reidme

    I’ve been wanting an instant-on clamshell net device for some time, and this could be it. Certainly the concept isn’t new: even the “Handheld PC” built on predecessors like the HP95LX, Sharp Wizards, and Psion organizers. In fact, this reminds me most of the Psion Netbook. But all those devices were from the days of dial-up; now we have broadband and wi-fi. I’m glad some manufacturer is revisiting this abandoned catagory.

  • alese

    This thing is another device I can’t really figure out what could be it’s real use. If it’s just for having larger display and keyboard for your mobile phone to do more comfortable browsing and mail, then the $500 is too much.
    Also I don’t see who would really want/need this – people with the need to have bigger display/keyboard for their work allready carry notebooks that can do much more…

  • http://www.mormanfh.com sixftunda

    I find this device closer to what I need when I am on the go. I have a laptop but it definitely doesnt have a comparable battery life, and if it got lost/stolen/dropped/busted/ran over etc. I would be totally screwed. I would buy this.